Social Networking Infiltrates Tekken Tag Tournament 2

The World Tekken Federation offers players an unprecedented level of stat tracking.

Tekken developer Namco Bandai has announced a community network for the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2. The World Tekken Federation service will be a first for the fighting genre, offering players a huge amount of information aimed at improving their play at all levels and igniting the game's competitive scene.

World Tekken Federation will give users detailed play statistics ranging from their most-used characters and combos to suggestions on which fighters to train up in the game's Fight Lab training mode. The information will be available to other players, too, giving combatants a look at their opponents' strategies ahead of a match. There will also be a forum, which will allow players to discuss strategies and move sets, and a clan system with detailed individual and team leaderboards so players can see how they stack up compared to the world's best.

As well as the new community network, the company elaborated on some of the game's other online features in a Gamescom trailer. A dedicated channel will save match replays for later viewing, while ranked and exhibition modes will let veterans and newcomers alike to compete on a playing field that suits them. Players will even have a warm-up mode available so that they can practice combos while waiting for online challengers.

Namco Bandai has branded World Tekken Federation as a "premium service", but it's not clear yet whether this means there's a subscription fee involved. Series producer Katsuhiro Harada recently stated that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 wouldn't have characters as paid DLC, but didn't rule out the possibility of other forms of paid content. If it does choose a subscription model, the World Tekken Federation network could well herald the game's first step towards paid content in a similar vein to other services like Call of Duty: Elite and Battlefield 3's Premium subscription.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and the World Tekken Federation will both be released on September 11, 2012 in North America.